


How to Catch a Cat

by Pondermoniums



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Cat Characteristics, Cat Ears, Catboy Steve, Catboys & Catgirls, Discrimination, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Neil Hargrove's A+ Parenting, Nosey Billy Hargrove, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Billy Hargrove, Season/Series 02, Self-Esteem Issues, Teen Boy Shenanigans, bit of a slow burn, cat shenanigans, fear of needles, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:02:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28480608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pondermoniums/pseuds/Pondermoniums
Summary: Of course Billy has heard of them. He’s even seen them, living in California, as he used to, under the sunshine with plenty of seafood markets abound. But he pieced together from observation that “cat people” were...well. Like cats. They stuck with their crowd or kept to themselves. And disappeared in a blink if they didn’t want you to find them. Billy had never really seen on up close before, let alone properly interacted with one.That is, until he came smack into contact with Steve Harrington.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 35
Kudos: 210





	1. How to Catch a Cat

**Author's Note:**

> I HAVE BEEN ENABLED AND SO I SHALL PROSPER.
> 
> Catboy Steve, what else can I say?

Of course Billy has _heard_ of them. He’s even seen them, living in California, as he used to, under the sunshine with plenty of seafood markets abound. But he pieced together from observation that “cat people” were...well. Like cats. They stuck with their crowd or kept to themselves. And disappeared in a blink if they didn’t want you to find them. Billy had never really seen one up close before, let alone properly interacted with one.

That is, until he came smack into contact with Steve Harrington.

In the middle of the school parking lot, standing with his friends like any other student, Billy understood the fascination with them like a bucket of water landed on his head. Because Steve was overwhelming in both his differences and similarities.

He was just a guy. A little taller than Billy, in fact—why did Billy have the impression that cat people were averagely shorter?—and laughing like any other high schooler.

Except he had a tail. He kept it curled around his hip and thigh, out of the way. It wasn’t bushy like a Maine Coon, but something in between a short hair and longhaired cat. It matched his dark hair. His dark _ears_. Maybe the reason Billy got so close before he stopped dead in his tracks was because the guy’s hair stood nearly as tall as his ears. Brown tips that eased to black in the depths of his hair—

Steve’s head turned to him with one eyebrow slightly raised. Billy wondered if he knew Billy had been there, but gave him the grace period of moving along until Billy was clearly bent on staring. Now he had those large eyes on him, and…Steve really just looked like a regular person. Kind of heavy brow bones, but large whiskey eyes crowned a European nose and pretty boy lips…

“You done?”

Polo shirt. Khakis. Clean jacket. New shoes. This pristine kitty was a brat, and Billy let a toothy smile break through his smirk. “Not even close.”

He couldn’t read Steve’s expression, then, but it didn’t matter because a skinny girl drew Steve toward the school by the arm.

_Kitty’s got a girlfriend? Cute._

Billy couldn’t really say how he learned the cat’s name; just that everyone knew it, and soon enough, so did Billy. He observed the way the tall young man moved through the halls, chin up and gait loose like he owned them. Maybe he did, what with the money on his back and the equal mixture of reverence and disdain for the name, Harrington.

But for the most part, Steve seemed to just be…Steve. It took a couple days for Billy to understand, but when he did, he couldn’t help but feel like Dorothy out of Kansas. Hawkins only had one high school. One middle school. One elementary school. Probably one daycare. Of course nobody stared at Steve. They’d been with him their entire lives.

So of course there wasn’t even an address on the Halloween party fliers that stuck out of his locker. Billy had to ask where this girl, Tina, lived, but everybody knew everybody, so come Halloween night, Billy stood out of his car in his nicest leather jacket with his shirt left behind in his car.

It was fun. In a small town where the only worthwhile activities are booze and sex, kind of way. Billy considered himself good at both, and soon enough his torso shined with other people’s spilled liquor and beer from his keg stand. He didn’t even know there was a record to beat until numbers were shouted all around him. He kept going because why not?

Then his feet were on the ground with hands slapping his shoulders, his back.

The house thrummed with music worthy of neighbor complaints.

Somebody missed the memo that you’re supposed to teepee the outside of a house, not the interior rafters, but Billy used one of the long strands of toilet paper to wipe his chin…

He didn’t expect to see a cat person in the middle of a house party. Noise, commotion, overwhelming smells, but there stood Steve by the stain glass doors. With his girlfriend.

Not so much as a coherent thought, but as a feeling resting in his spine behind his ribs, Billy growled internally, _She’s got to go_.

And when he finished crossing the room to stand face to face with Steve, Billy almost smirked all over again. Because she turned right around and left Steve where he stood. The cat tore his gaze from Billy to lock onto her going to the kitchen—

“It’s a little loud in here, isn’t it?”

Billy’s eyes darted up to one of Steve’s ears twisting toward the kitchen, and that…made a rush of heat—could be the beer or raw fascination—bloom up Billy’s throat and cheeks. The way Steve’s gaze watched Billy’s, but remained illegible while his ears moved…made Billy frown. Steve wasn’t paying attention to him.

He reached right around Steve for the doorknob, framing him in Billy’s personal space, and hustled Steve right outside. “Dude, move—what are you—?”

The way Steve’s eyes blew wide to accommodate for the darkness made Billy’s stomach jump. “We haven’t properly met.”

“You’re the guy everyone hates in gym,” Steve remarked with something of a smirk. He turned to start making his way around the house since Billy obviously wasn’t letting him back into it through the side door.

“It’s not my fault nobody can keep up. My name’s Billy. Billy Hargrove. Why haven’t I seen you there, Steve?”

He got the desired effect: Steve threw a huff over his shoulder and his gaze stuck on Billy. “I finished my gym credits.”

“That’s a shame,” Billy crooned. “I’m sure it’s a dream to see you move.”

Maybe to show off, or maybe it’s just a _Steve_ thing, but he leapt up the porch stairs in one bound. He made it look like an easy, springy step before he dived into the Halloween crowd once more, not even checking to see if Billy followed him or not.

He considered reaching for a fresh cigarette since he was outside; he even got as far as holding it in his mouth when the guy, Tommy, sauntered up behind him.

“He didn’t finish any credits.”

Billy stopped searching for his lighter and lifted annoyed eyes at him. “Excuse me?”

Tommy lifted his brows over pot smoke eyes. “He’s not allowed. No sports. No gym.” He shrugged and began lifting a cup of beer to his mouth. “It’s kinda nice, apart from the whole discriminatory aspect—”

Billy smacked the cup right out of his hand. “Dude. What’s up your ass?”

“Next time you feel like eavesdropping, stay inside.”

However Billy only had himself to blame for lingering outside, because he didn’t see Steve for the rest of the night. He only knew Steve left the party because someone cooed in the kitchen, “Trouble in paradise! Someone else is taking Nancy home.”

“That blows,” someone else commented. “Steve’s been chasing her for weeks.”

“Her loss,” a girl with wildly permed hair declared around a Twizzler.

That’s how Billy found himself knocking on the Harringtons’ door the following morning. Double doors, actually. Showered, freshly shaved, and digesting a pot of coffee topped off with some ibuprofen, Billy tried to wait patiently for one of them to open. He looked at his watch and sighed haughtily at the 10:23 there—

Both doors opened to none other, than Mrs. Harrington. An easy smile slid right over Billy’s features, because Steve definitely took after her. Same nose, eyes, lips, and hair, she even stood taller than most women. But it was the eyes. She didn’t have cat ears or a tail that he could see, but something about the eyes…the shape of the pupil might’ve been a little less round, or perhaps it was the irises. They pinned a their object in place. Billy would bet a lot on Steve inheriting his feline attributes from her.

A thick, ice blue, silk robe glistened around her shoulders despite the green, flannel, pajama pants underneath. Billy wondered if Steve had a matching pair. “Mrs. Harrington? Good morning, I’m Billy Hargrove. Steve’s friend.”

Pristine, yet not manicured, nails pointed forward as she offered her hand. “Good morning, Billy.”

He closed it within both of his. “It’s a pleasure, ma’am.”

Her hand slid out of his with a little tilt of her head. Billy felt like those eyes were analyzing him even while she said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think Steve is up for visitors today.”

Billy winced over an apologetic smile. “It doesn’t happen to be because of a girl, does it?”

Mrs. Harrington sighed and crossed her arms while leaning against the doorframe. “Small town cruelties. I suppose everyone knows?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” he lied, “I just happened to be around when they, uh…had some friction.”

Mrs. Harrington just…stared at him for a while. Long enough for Billy to wonder if he said something wrong or if he was being dismissed. He tried to smile again but this woman was clearly not like other mothers. Eventually he admitted, “Uh. Am I missing something here?”

“No,” she chimed. “I’m waiting to see if Steve wants to see you.”

“Mom.”

“I reckon he does.” She stood up from the doorframe and rotated so Billy could see Steve coming through the foyer. “Billy, have you had breakfast?”

“Just coffee. My stomach hasn’t been ready for solids yet.”

She tossed a knowing smile over her shoulder. “I’m sure. Steve makes a spectacularly greasy breakfast sandwich whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m not cooking. I barely know him,” her son objected. Steve weathered through his mother cradling his face to kiss his cheek in passing. When she moved along, he leveled tired eyes at Billy, who was not shy about his gaze wandering over Steve. Matching flannel pants. Crimson long-sleeve shirt that went so well with his chocolate hair. Billy could see now that Steve’s ears were lined with black fur.

One of them swiveled down to make room for Steve raking a hand through his hair as he turned to go back into the depths of his house. All at once, Billy realized he was allowed in. He quickly yanked on his bootlaces, leaving his leather jacket on the coat hanger. He was glad for it, as the house only grew toastier the further he followed Steve.

“You look like Christmas,” he teased, only to have his expression wiped by the purring fireplace across from the kitchen.

“There’s coffee,” Steve offered tersely, opening the cabinet for mugs but otherwise leaving Billy to it. The house smelled of eggs, bread, bacon, and something sweet. As Billy helped himself to coffee, he peered at Steve pulling bagel slices out of the toaster to join his fried eggs and…an apple pastry. Billy’s stomach gave a twinge of hangover but also the first tickles of hunger. He found the cupcake pan with the apple slices arranged like rose petals on each pastry, and plucked one out for himself.

Not wanting to spoil his luck at being let into the Harrington house, he quickly found the plates and forks before sitting next to Steve on the couch. Both of them hunkered over the coffee table with their plates. Billy admitted, “I’m a little surprised you don’t use the dining table, or…what do you call those? Breakfast bars?”

“Dad’s not home,” was Steve’s only explanation before a forkful of eggs.

“So the cats will play,” Billy hummed around his pastry. “This is good.”

“Don’t call us that.”

The words were quiet, but definitely there. Billy swallowed and lifted his coffee to his lips. “What do you want to be called?”

 _Jesus, everything in this house is good_ , he thought into the dark liquid.

Steve pointed with his fork, “That’s a cat.”

Billy expected a figurine on the built-in shelves. Instead, a cat so beautiful it looked fake, jumped onto the coffee table. Blue eyes glowed out of a face as dark as Billy’s coffee. A white splotch, like a star on a horse, marked the cat’s forehead until pale, creamy fur covered its body apart from the legs, ears, and tail. Even the cat’s chest had a great deal of the dark, coffee fur.

It came to lick cream cheese off of Steve’s outstretched finger. Billy wondered aloud, “What’s her name? Latte?”

“It was Godiva. But she’s just Diva now.”

“She sure is, if you’re spoiling her from your table.”

“Hey!” Steve exclaimed when Billy took the other half of his bagel. It crunched pleasantly between his teeth, the sour cream cheese going nicely with the everything spices.

Ignoring Steve’s disgruntlement, Billy went on to say, “How common is it for… _you_ to have cats?”

Steve understood and shrugged, focusing on his food. “As normal as anyone else.”

Billy didn’t quite believe that, but he left it alone. Steve’s ears perked up when Billy rubbed his fingertips together for the cat’s attention, and offered a tiny peak of cheese on his finger. He chuckled deep in his chest at the rough tongue tickling his skin. “She’s easy to bribe.”

“She’s a ragdoll.”

“That seems like a rude thing to say of the diva in your house.”

“No, that’s her breed.”

“ _Ragdoll?_ What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. That she’s really domestic?”

To demonstrate, Steve scooped her indecorously off the table, gathering her upside-down body in his arms. The cat’s head merely swiveled to keep an eye on their plates, completely pliant to whatever Steve was doing. Billy huffed an amused breath and scratched her forehead. She didn’t seem to mind, until she caught his hand in her paws to investigate. Finding nothing, she let him go in favor of looking longingly at their breakfast.

“What do you want to be called?” Billy repeated.

Steve set the cat down on the floor. “Well my name is Steve, so you could start there.”

Billy smiled to himself as he pried an apple slice off of Steve’s pastry with his fork. “Mmkay.”

Steve pulled it right off his fork with his fingers. “God, you _are_ a douchebag.”

“Only because I haven’t lost to anyone yet.”

“Yeah, yet.” Steve briefly sucked on his fingertips and went back to eating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, guys! If you're familiar with my works, welcome baaack <333 if you're new, I have a lot of Harringrove to choose from haha 
> 
> [Twitter~](https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums)  
> [Tumblr~](http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/)


	2. How to Impress Your Cat

Billy made it a habit to get into Steve’s space.

Come Monday, Billy hustled Max into the car so they could get to school a little early, and even then, Steve still got there first. Billy moved the gearshift into Park and reached into the cup holder for a sharpie and a half-consumed water bottle. “Hey. Read this.”

“Huh? What are you—” Max exclaimed, but frowned at the bottle. _Get a ride home._

Billy, meanwhile, smiled at Steve in the distance. Because as he stood with a couple of his early-riser friends, one of his ears twisted around toward him, listening.

“Why?”

Billy had a pretty good gauge of Steve’s hearing radius, if the parking lot was anything to go by. He shoved the bottle into Max’s backpack. “Hey!”

“Don’t forget,” he finally answered, stepping out of his car. He stuffed his hands into his pockets while he sauntered over to Steve. The latter’s head turned to meet him, and Billy nudged his knee behind Steve’s, trying to buckle his leg.

“Stop that,” he fidgeted, not so easily dismantled. “It’s too early for that.”

But Billy liked the way Steve grasped his jacket, as if he needed to hold on for balance. When his hand let go, Billy subtly chased it by leaning into Steve’s space. “Let’s skip fifth period.”

Steve stared at him for a solid two seconds, never mind that they were mere inches apart. “You have a fifth period?”

Billy’s high tilted to clumsily land on the asphalt around them. “The school day has to end somewhere? Wait a—” It was Billy’s turn to hold Steve’s jacket. Steve let him. “You don’t have a fifth period? You get out early? Everyday?”

The sound of gum popping made Steve blink hard enough to be a tiny wince. Billy turned toward its source, Carol, who said, “He doesn’t have gym, duh.”

Going back to ignoring the people around them, Billy pushed his knee against Steve’s again. “So you’re definitely free.”

Carol scoffed, “Whoever thought it was a good idea to make gym the last class of the day didn’t take driving licenses into account.”

Steve focused to consider, “And go where?”

“You choose. You have all day to decide. Meet back here.”

* * *

Steve wanted to get ice cream. In November.

Billy didn’t refuse, so he followed Steve into town, and relished Steve’s excited inhalation the moment he stepped into the ice cream parlor. Billy could agree, it smelled good, but for Steve, it might’ve been a thousand times more. He liked the way Steve’s shoulders hitched a little on his way to the display case, the way his tail—usually wrapped around himself to keep it out of the way—flicked between his legs.

Billy purposefully bumped into him and asked, “What’s good here?”

Steve pointed, “The mango sorbet and the triple fudge chunk.”

“Cup of each and we share?”

“I don’t share.”

“With me, you do.”

“Stealing is not sharing. Even I know that.”

“Do you want the Christmas sprinkles?”

“Of course I do.”

Billy grinned on his way over to the counter the same time the bells on the door jingled inharmoniously. Festive, sure, but musical, no. The bored community college student said, “Afternoon, Chief,” and went about ducking into the case with the scooper.

Chief Hopper waved but otherwise kept chatting with one of his fellow sheriffs before he locked onto Billy and Steve. “Hey, guys? School hasn’t let out yet.”

Steve didn’t flinch. “I don’t have a fifth period.”

The chief looked like he needed a moment to process that, it was so unbelievable. “They didn’t assign you a whole class?”

“Juniors have gym last. I don’t have gym,” Steve put forward like a math equation.

“Ah. Uh huh,” Hopper nodded, still dubious as he focused on Billy. “And what’s your excuse?”

“Oh, I’m skipping.”

Steve looked at him, an incredulous but impressed grin slowly blooming on his face. Billy got to see how long his eyeteeth were.

Hopper drawled, “I’m going to not insult your intelligence by explaining academic morals to you, and instead inquire why you’re set on skipping when Thanksgiving and Christmas break are right next door?”

Billy didn’t miss a beat. “Because someone got dumped on Halloween, and I’m discretely showing them what a blessing it is, to not have to pine after me while being stuck to someone else.”

Steve’s expression turned deadpan. “Discrete?”

Billy got their ice cream cups while Hopper rubbed his eyes. Steve took his chocolate ice cream dusted with red, white, and green sprinkles in various shapes of Santa, trees, and snowflakes. “I’m not pining.”

“You don’t need to. I’m right here. Your car? Mine? Or back to your place?”

Steve scoffed in the direction of his car. “My place.”

Billy could get used to Steve’s house. He laughed to himself as Steve bolted from his car through his front door. He almost asked what the hurry was, but then found Steve adding more sprinkles to his ice cream. Blue sparkles. “Would you like sugar with your sugar?”

“Yes,” Steve sassed, hopping so his butt landed on the counter—and crisscrossed his legs. Billy took a spoon out of the drawer Steve left open and shut it so he could lean his pelvis against the counter opposite Steve.

“I meant to tell you: I didn’t realize Tommy was behind us on Halloween. If I’d known, I would’ve thrown him back inside.”

Steve didn’t chew, so much as move his tongue against the roof of his mouth while he processed that. “What does it matter?”

“Maybe I wanted to talk to you longer without a creep listening in.”

“I went back inside anyways. And you’re the creep who pushed me outside.”

Billy’s mouth clicked as he retorted, “What can I say? You were looking good in black. I was looking great in black—”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve snorted, returning his focus to his ice cream.

“—I had a moment of possessive clarity and intended to give us some privacy. But it should’ve been you who told me, not Tommy. Asshole didn’t have the right.”

“Told you what?” Steve said it like a challenge.

“That this shithole keeps you cooped up.” Billy let that sit in the air a moment before he added, “It’s unfair that you’re not allowed to participate because of their poor taste.”

Steve stirred the little bit of ice cream that had melted. “I can do stuff, just not through the school.”

“Is there, like, a basketball league for people with better reflexes?” he asked tactfully.

“You realize you’re just as nosey as Tommy.”

Billy would have recoiled more if he had less ice cream in his mouth. “Do. Not. Pair me with that guy. He’d follow me around like a dog if I let him.”

“The way you move your tongue around, you’re not much different.”

Billy grabbed Steve’s cup and dug a trench with his tongue. Steve gaped, his hands staying open from shock.

Then, “I’ve never considered murder until now.”

Billy laughed at the ceiling and hummed, “The sprinkles really add something.”

* * *

“You can’t just skip gym any time you want.”

Billy squinted as if he couldn’t see any sense in that. “Sure I can. It’s Friday. Get in.”

Steve remained on his stoop with his car keys in hand, peering dubiously between his car and Billy’s. When he’d opened his door to leave for school, the last thing he expected was for Billy to already be there to pick him up. Which warranted the plan to take Steve home, despite his getting out of school early. Probably especially since he got out of school early.

Now Steve realized a bored pair of eyes scrutinized him from inside Billy’s Camaro. “Did you kidnap somebody?”

“What? No, she’s my step-sister, and _she’s getting in the back_.”

Her eyes rolled and she began to peel herself off the front seat.

Steve held his hand up as he rushed over the driveway. “No! No, you don’t have to move. I’m taking _my_ car.”

Billy leaned off of the driver’s door. “Well there’s an idea—”

“ _No_.” Steve faced Billy’s far too content expression with a hand planted on his hip. “What is your deal?”

Billy shook his head, the picture of bullshit innocence. “I think carpooling is a marvelous idea.”

“I think you’re trying to melt my eardrums. The way you drive, you could _think_ a song, and I’d hear it.”

“If you could hear my thoughts, we wouldn’t even be going to school.”

The only thing keeping Steve from looking gob smacked was Max’s blunt, “ _Ew_.”

Steve shook his head and wrenched his door open. “We’re all gonna be late—”

“What do you have against carpooling?” Billy interrogated on his way around the back of his car. Steve threw an annoyed glare at him before he realized, with his car door open, he was caged between the vehicles with Billy coming up the alley.

“Can’t I like and prefer driving my car?”

“So it’s against me or my car?” Billy challenged, lifting an elbow onto the BMW roof.

Steve sighed and looked around, of nothing else than to see the world outside of _Billy_. Blue eyes flicked down to Steve’s throat swallowing. “My car is my space. I need my space. I actually like the drive to school.”

Billy visibly ruminated on that, frowning but not over-critically. “Okay. But come to the gym when you’re done.”

A tress of hair fell over Steve’s face, making him blink as he said, “Excuse me?”

“People in other classes ask for bathroom breaks all the time and come to the gym instead. The coaches don’t care. Come to fifth period.”

Steve’s weight shifted to one foot as he leaned against his car. When his eyes lolled to the side, Billy knew he had him. On his way back to his car, Billy heard, “What am I supposed to do? Sit in the bleachers like a lawn ornament?”

“You can help me kick Tommy’s ass in basketball.”

Steve didn’t seem consoled by that, but Billy slid into his car and waited for Steve’s door to close so there was at least a buffer between him and Billy’s engine starting up. He watched Steve’s face to see if he flinched at all, but Max derailed his attention with, “Isn’t it dangerous for him to play basketball? People pull on shirts; what about his tail?”

Billy hadn’t thought of that, but he felt a searing ember drop into his belly at the notion. “Only if they want broken wrists.”

He thought he might’ve seen Steve’s head turn a little, but then he was reversing out of the driveway and wiggling his fingers out of his window as he made Billy drive on his bumper at a snail’s pace. Max’s quiet giggles weren’t helping.

“We’re gonna be late if you keep encouraging him.”

“Is his hearing that good?”

Steve’s fingers curled into the _Okay_ sign. Billy shook his head and said, “Your hand’s turning red. Stick your arm back inside.”

And then Max and Billy’s jaws dropped at the unmistakable _extension_ of Steve’s nails. It was so brief that when he waved and tucked his hand out of the November wind, he left Billy stupefied long enough for another driver to honk at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Twitter~](https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums)   
>  [Tumblr~](http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/)


	3. Care and Support

It was a testament of the noise around them that Billy was able to surprise Steve. He shoulders pressed back against the lockers, causing Steve to jump, both at the lurch of sound and sudden proximity. “Show me that again.”

“No,” Steve scoffed, cramming a rather empty binder into his locker.

“How do you do that? Your finger joints are the same as mine.”

Steve peeked at him analyzing his own hand. Lifting a knee against the wall of lockers, he propped his backpack on his thigh while he said, “Most people are grossed out.”

“I’m not most people. Show me. Just one?”

Steve looked through his locker, but finding nothing noteworthy, he pointed a finger in the middle of their little cave of privacy. Billy rotated so his body boxed them in, and watched Steve’s pointer nail extend. Turns out, a good bit of nail rested under the skin until the first joint. Steve began to retract it, but Billy took his hand in both of his own.

“Gently!” he whispered.

“Calm down,” Billy meant to scold, but the wonder at feeling Steve’s retractable nail filled his voice. Steve’s nails were short on their own, so Billy didn’t have much to pinch and tug. But during his focus, Steve gave his hand a poke, startling Billy into laughter. “That’s awesome, but what do you use them for?”

Steve lifted the lever to shut his locker quietly. “Lots of stuff. Fights.”

“You get into scraps?” Billy gave him a playful shoulder check as they turned in the direction of the gym.

Instead of answering, Steve whined, “Tell me why I’m going to the smelly gymnasium.”

“Listen, half the time the coaches don’t want to do their job and we sit in the bleachers anyway. If that’s the case, we leave.”

They had to go outside to reach the gym building. With far less students around, Steve said a little quietly, “The most they’ll let me do is walk around the track.”

Billy looked at the fenced in running lanes right next to the gymnasium. “Nobody’s using that at this time of year except neighborhood retirees.”

Steve huffed a little with mirth. “Yeah.”

Billy stopped them with a grip on Steve’s backpack before they went inside. “Do you wanna get out of here?”

“I think at this point I’m your keeper. Someone has to make sure you get through roll call.”

Billy smiled and let go of him so he could walk through first. Billy almost regretted it, since he entered the gymnasium to Tommy hollering, “Look who it is! His highness makes an appearance. Well, former highness and the new king. You two look cute together.”

A silent agreement moved Steve and Billy to the bleachers to dump their stuff. Then Billy realized, “You had the keg record?”

Steve leveled a matching frown of curiosity at him. “You weren’t paying attention during Halloween?”

“I had better things to occupy me,” he played off, but now he began to wonder what all me missed during Halloween.

Steve laughed and began stepping up the bleachers like wide stairs. At the top, he settled on the floor between the seats so his tail had room, and his legs indecorously draped over the seat in front of him. Billy joined him and couldn’t blame half the class for crowding around them. Steve knew all of them, and they treated him like a novelty, which made Billy consider when exactly Steve’s P.E. curriculum got cut off.

The coaches were fifteen minutes late. Billy didn’t necessarily mind staying at school if it meant Steve kept smiling and laughing—

Billy didn’t miss Steve’s wince against the whistle blowing for attention. Shirts vs Skins. He also didn’t miss the coaches waiting to see if Steve came down from the bleachers. When he didn’t, they paid him no more attention than anyone else loitering outside of class.

Possibly the only thing keeping Billy from heaving Steve over his shoulder and skipping, was his assignment on team Skins. Billy smirked on his way to the locker room, and emerged in his Converse, shorts, and—

Felt as good as smacked in the head at the sight of Nancy Wheeler sitting in his place beside Steve.

Not wanting Tommy, or any other loudmouth, barking at them, Billy set his sights on the game. And he played the way he always played: to win.

When somebody failed to get out of the way, they should’ve known better. Billy had been in this class for like, two weeks. Nearly everyone had busted ass at this point. Frankly, Billy laughed at the very real likelihood of getting booted to the bleachers with Steve—

Except Steve wasn’t there.

Tommy and others were shouting and slapping him for the shot he made, and Steve wasn’t even there to see it.

Billy knew how to get fouled and out, though. One too strong of a pull on a guy’s shirt, and the coach sent him to the bench. Billy went to the gym doors instead. He almost missed the voices, but in the middle of class, the area outside was all but silent. He followed them to the alleyway between the gymnasium and the science labs, where he peeked around to see Steve and Nancy standing with…not the most comforting body language.

Steve leaned against the brick, seemingly casual but…his tail hung limp between his legs. It wasn’t curved around him, or flicking in any direction. Something about his ears wasn’t…right. They weren’t straight up and perky. They had sagged a little lower on his scalp, turned outward at clumsy, tired angles.

Nancy stood on Steve’s other side, mostly out of Billy’s line of sight, but he could see that she stood tall and—

“No,” Billy heard clearly from Steve’s mouth.

“No?” Nancy parroted.

“I get it, Nance, just don’t dig your heels in while I’m under them.”

He pushed himself off the wall as she hurried, “That’s not what I—Steve—”

Billy went back inside the gym.

* * *

Steve groaned inwardly as he turned into his driveway, pulling past the Camaro parked on his curb. The time it took to park, grab his stuff, and exit the car made him realize aloud, “How did you get here before me?”

Billy, with his hair still damp from the fastest shower of his life, replied, “I know the roads.”

Steve’s eyes were dry but he sniffed as he looked elsewhere. “I don’t want to play host today.”

“When have you ever?” Billy followed him to the door. Steve stopped in front of it but Billy kept moving until he stood behind him.

Steve took his time sorting out his keys. “What about Max?”

“She has friends.”

“Is that…fine, though? You leaving without her?”

Billy took a second to answer, to gauge what would convince Steve to let him inside.

Billy let his voice go quiet. Soft. “Max knows, and can take care of herself. What do _you_ need?”

It wasn’t a victory that Steve was too strung out to fight him. He twisted the key in the lock and murmured, “A lot of sleep.”

He dumped his stuff at the foot of the coat hanger, and trudged up the stairs. Billy toed off his shoes and went into the kitchen, looking around. Mrs. Harrington didn’t come out to greet them or to check on Steve, so Billy found the door to the garage and concluded that she wasn’t home.

He heard the muffled shower going upstairs and decided to make something. Food was comforting, right? Billy knew fuck all about cooking except for the easy things he and Max had figured out over the years, along with his own improvisations. When he found a cylinder of dough, he unwrapped and popped it against the counter before rifling through drawers.

It was a while before he found and knocked on Steve’s door—though it wasn’t difficult since the house was halfway decorated for Christmas already. The purple, velvet stocking with a glittering S was hard to miss. Diva slid right past his legs when he opened to door without waiting for a response.

The only light in the room was the sparse bit of afternoon coming through the blinds, and the multicolored Christmas lights entwined with the garland over Steve’s headboard. A real garland. Billy chirped a soft, _“Oh,”_ and inhaled deeply at the unmistakable scent. You couldn’t fake that smell.

Diva answered him with a sweet little whine from the bed. Steve laid with his back to them both, a lump under his blankets. Billy adjusted the spare pillow for him to sit against the headboard, and let Diva sniff his hand. “I don’t think cats do tomatoes, little one.”

Completely neglecting Steve in favor of stumbling over the bed—and Steve—to situate herself nearest to Billy, the latter couldn’t help but huff. “Some comfort animal.”

He took a moment to gaze at Steve’s damp hair. Unable to help himself, Billy stroked the back of a finger through the tresses on his nape, causing one of the large ears, made larger by Steve’s hair sticking to his head, to swivel like an eye peering at him. “Hungry?”

The covers rose and fell with Steve’s inhalation. “What is it?”

“Pizza balls.”

Steve peeked over his shoulder and then committed to rolling over. Billy had brought up the entire baking sheet after slashing tomato sauce over the rows of dough balls. The rows made a Christmas tree, garlanded in red and sprinkled with cheese and herbs. It was crude—very _Billy_ —but homemade and smelled nice. Steve took the top of the tree and carefully bit into a cheesy, pepperoni center.

“It’s good.”

Billy could only hum in agreement since he stuffed a whole pizza ball into his mouth—which turned into a snort of pain from hot grease coating his mouth. It earned a quiet sound of mirth from Steve, though. He ate slowly, but Billy made sure to pace himself so Steve could have his fill. He only ate the first couple rows of the tree before he licked his fingers and dragged Diva like a stuffed animal under his arm to keep her pinned against his body.

Billy took the baking sheet to the kitchen and returned to find Steve properly sleeping. Diva rolled over, exposing her belly when Billy pressed his knee into the mattress, inhaling the scent of fir fronds. And Steve. Steve radiated fragrance, his body warm from his shower. He smelled clean, sure, but…something else. As Billy slid himself under the covers—lifting Diva on the hammock between them—he turned his face into the pillow for more of Steve’s scent. There was a kind of…spice, for lack of a better word, but Billy didn’t push his luck with burying his face between Steve’s ears to get more of it.

Billy was dozing before he realized it.

The lull of a dark room with the warm, colorful glow and woodsy fragrance pulled him right under. Some part of his brain tried to stay above it; that part was aware of a door opening and closing in the house. Then Steve’s door. It took Billy a while to piece together that it would be his mom coming home, wouldn’t it? The sound of Diva landing on the floor to greet her confirmed it. Kinda nice, having someone check on you… That thought caught Billy off guard. He despised uninvited visitors to his own room.

But as he felt the door ease back closed, like the very air pressure in the room exhaled with it, that part of Billy’s brain sagged right with the rest of him into sleep.

* * *

The last thing he expected was to wake up with Steve on his chest.

The weight of an arm thrown over Billy’s torso brought his attention to the lump of hair on his sternum… Steve was a facedown kind of sleeper, apparently. So much so that his ears pointed directly into Billy’s body. All at once, Billy’s heart expanded, kicking up into his ribs as if to meet the heavy—and _hot_ —kitten making the lights above their heads glow more like furnace embers. Not that Billy _minded_ , but he began to have a working understanding of why people refused to move with cats sleeping on them…

A sound came from Steve, causing Billy to realize he was awake. It took him a few seconds of vacant blinking up at the ceiling to understand Steve’s mumbled, “Yourheartbeat’sloud.”

“Is—”

Steve whipped off of him so fast that Billy’s heart jackrabbited between his own ears. _“Don’t do that,”_ Steve moaned, holding his head as he fell onto his other side—and off of Billy.

“What, talk?” he tried to murmur. All at once, Billy felt the surge of being awake mixed with the groggy recklessness of sleep as he rolled into Steve, reaching for his waist. “Wait, where’s…?”

He slid a hand over the mattress, following the line of Steve’s spine until he found Steve’s tail. He kept going, gently easing the— _soft_ —length against Steve’s body so Billy could mold himself against that backside. He took it as an excellent sign that Steve didn’t shove him off. He crooned against Steve’s shoulder and the side of his neck. “What’s it about my mouth you don’t like?”

Ever so slightly, Steve pressed himself deeper into his pillow. “Your voice is in your chest.”

Billy made a soft, deep sound. Steve’s shoulders hitched a little, curving him backwards into Billy. “I guess it’s like putting your ear against a megaphone. Why were you listening?”

Steve didn’t respond right away, and Billy began to wonder if he would answer at all. But his hand had settled on Steve’s front, where he moved a thumb over one of Steve’s low ribs through his t-shirt. After a long inhalation, he answered, “Everything’s loud…voices, water, cars, TVs, clothing. But not all sounds are bad. Heartbeats help when my nerves are raw.”

Billy absorbed every word of that for later contemplation. “Sorry I burst that bubble.”

“I didn’t exactly ask. Sorry.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Billy crooned.

“Why do you come here instead of your house?”

The question smacked into him, completely unforeseen. He didn’t really have anything else but the truth. “It’s not home.”

“Where is home?”

“…It used to be the beach.”

Steve processed that, and then, “What was the beach like?”

“You’ve never been to a beach?” he half-teased.

“On the east coast, sure,” Steve surprised him. “We’ve got a lot of freshwater beaches here.”

“Not the same.” Billy settled anew behind Steve’s neck, relishing the little headshake of Steve nuzzling backward when Billy’s nose moved through his hair. “Why the east coast?”

“Mom’s from the Philly-New Jersey area. Dad’s from Manhattan.”

“ _Really?_ Why in the world are you out here?”

“Mom wanted quiet when they started a family since there was a good chance I’d come out the way I did. Indiana land is cheap for business and close to Chicago, so dad agreed.”

“Are there more like you east of here? There were always some strolling the beach and the shops in my hometown. It can’t be easy being alone.”

Steve’s shoulder bumped his jaw when he shrugged. “Kindergarten sucked but after that I wasn’t an exotic phenomenon anymore. And the little assholes learned the hard way not to pull on my tail or poke my ears.”

Billy chuckled and relished the tiny shiver that moved through Steve. He finished, “Mom’s sister has ears. Grandpa on dad’s side has the eyes.”

“Like, vertical pupils?”

“No.” And then Steve turned his head over his shoulder so Billy could see his pupils blow _wide_. He could’ve sworn the whiskey irises expanded too, just from how the pupils seemed to consume the entire eye.

Billy whispered before he meant to, “That’s so cool.”

Steve snorted quietly. “Usually it’s the eyes that give people the creeps.”

“No way. They’re like moonstones.”

Steve peeked at him. “Like what?”

His gaze fell to Billy’s hand on his sternum, fingertips pinching together as if he held one. “They’re white stones, but they’ve got clear sections that reflect blue in the light. Like your eyes. They’ve got black flecks, too, like when people have holes in the whites of their eyes.”

Steve’s shoulders pivoted to fully stare at him. “ _What?_ ”

“Yeah. Some people have black freckles on their eyes. ‘Cept they’re not freckles. It’s a hole in the white of their eye.”

“What!” Steve whipped around to lay on his other side, facing Billy. “No it’s not.”

“I’m _telling_ you. It’s ironic you don’t have any, with these moles you’ve got.” Billy gave the ones on the side of his neck delicate pokes with the pad of a finger.

Steve’s voiced softened to a new, low pitch. “How do you know—”

His topside ear swiveled, listening. Billy liked that a whole lot.

“Mom’s got dinner ready. There’s a plate for you.”

He slid an elbow under him to rise and begin climbing out of the covers…

“Hey, Steve?”

Once he had his attention, Billy turned his head while holding the skin around his eye. He looked sharply to one side, revealing two tiny spots on the side of his eyeball.

Suddenly he had a whole lot of Steve pointed down at him, eyes wide in the normal human sense, nap hair in disarray and pouty lips agape. “Does it hurt?” he gasped like it was the coolest thing in the world.

Billy grinned tiredly, chuckling. “Not at all. Doc just said I have to wear sunglasses if I get more of them.”

“How do— _Okay!_ ” Steve yelled at his door.

Billy joined him in getting out of bed and held the bedroom door before following him through the corridor. He may have done this to get a look at how Steve’s red-striped pajama shorts had a slit for his tail that buttoned closed. “What do you eat around here?”

“If you make a joke about fish casserole, so help me god.”

“It’s not my fault casseroles are all Indiana people know how to cook.”

“How would you know that?”

“Step-mom’s from Indianapolis.”

“Well mine’s from Philly, and your California ass is about to gain a few pounds.”

The woman herself spoke as they turned the corner of the kitchen. “Steve. Watch your language before dinner.”

Steve eagerly took his plate from the counter and went to sit in the living room while Billy scoffed with confusion. “Only before dinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	4. Emergencies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There isn't any explicit description, but if you have a fear of needles/injections/jabs/all other names for medicinal shots, then here's your heads up <3

“Can I ask you something?”

Steve heaved a sigh, his mouth full of sushi. Steve’s mom had the connection for good fish and had taken a number of cooking classes while she and Mr. Harrington lived in NYC. Billy was as good as living in the Harrington house with how often he dined there. Steve knew the sound of his car, his footsteps, and the cadence of his knock—which was a wonder he still did. Probably because he’d seen what Mrs. Harrington could do with a knife.

“If you ask me if my dick has barbs like a cat’s, I’m throwing you into the pool while the heating’s not on.”

Billy coughed on his tuna roll. He wiped spicy mayonnaise from his mouth as he barked, “Excuse me?”

“No open-ended question ever goes well for me,” Steve explained, dipping his tempura vegetables into soy sauce. His ears wiggled a little; almost vibrating as his palate danced underneath the flavors. Billy had learned he did that when he really liked something. Sushi. His mom’s homemade Baileys. The tomatillo sauce Billy had brought over for their tacos this past weekend.

Billy grimaced and ventured quietly, “Does it?”

Steve overturned his ginger sauce over Billy’s plate. “Hey, hey, hey! I’ll take that as a no, Jesus.” He laughed and forked the ginger pulp off his tuna. “I want to know what you’re doing for Thanksgiving.”

“Eating, probably. Why— _HHSSSS!_ ”

Billy had thrown his napkin at him, for which he got a _loud_ and admittedly, terrifying hiss. That is, if he didn’t collapse back in his chair laughing. A futile effort, holding a hand over his mouth, but at least he didn’t spit food everywhere.

“You’re an asshole!”

“You’re a smartass! Invite me over for Thanksgiving.”

“Why would I _invite_ you when you’re going to show up anyway?” Steve dumped the napkin into Billy’s glass of water.

Billy shook his head sassily. “Maybe I like the gesture.”

“Does your family not do Thanksgiving?” Steve poured himself more soy sauce and took the dish of mayonnaise from Billy’s side of the table. The latter’s hand overlapped his, so the dish stopped in the middle for both of them to use.

“We do lunch.”

Steve’s sharp eyeteeth crunched through tempura pumpkin. “Like…turkey sandwiches?”

Billy shook his head around his green tea. He didn’t expect to like the leaf water, but with a slice of lemon and honey, it wasn’t bad. “Ham. Which basically comes already done from the store. It’s more like a late lunch, early dinner.”

Steve plucked a piece of nigiri with his fingers and chewed contemplatively. “I always liked the taste of ham but it upsets my stomach. Yeah, you can come over. Mom cooks pieces of the turkey instead of a full bird. There’s a sweet potato casserole, though.”

Billy wielded a slice of his roll as he said, “I’m not eating that shit.”

Steve snorted. “Yeah you are. Crispy, crunchy edges. Brown sugar topping. Butter. It’s basically dessert.”

That didn’t sound…terrible. But instead of admitting to such a thing, he diverted, “Is your old man going to be there?”

“The first half of the week, yeah. He’s gotta be in Chicago for the rest of it to finalize Christmas prep, or whatever.”

“So you’re getting two dinners?”

“Leftovers,” he shrugged, “I get to miss school to help cook.” He paused with his mouth wide open around a piece of his roll. “I’m only inviting you the one day.”

Billy smirked. “I’ll be around.”

At least he wanted to be. Until Max informed him in the car come Monday morning, “Mom and Neil are noticing you’re not around.”

His thumb tapped the steering wheel, the sound of his engine and tires on the road purring between them. “What did you tell them?”

“Just that you’re at a friend’s house.”

His lips twitched to one side. “Do they think it’s a girl?”

“I don’t know. But you might want to wash your clothes more often. Before they figure out why they’re sneezing and that it’s not dry air making their eyes burn.”

He inhaled through his nose and sighed right back out. He could feel Max’s eyes on him for a short moment, and then the drive continued with silence.

In a similar fashion, he could feel Steve’s eyes on him when Billy came to stand with him in the parking lot. Billy met his curious gaze, but since people were around, neither said anything.

When fourth period ended, Billy found his usual place beside Steve’s locker. “I’m not coming over today.”

Steve peered at him while nonchalantly rummaging through his locker. “Did somebody die?” he asked while emerging with a handful of colorful sticky notes. He frowned at them like he hadn’t expected them to be in there.

He began to pry them apart while Billy said, “No, but I got stuff to do at my house.”

He watched Steve read through a note and crumple it up in one hand, the hand holding a growing pile of discards. Billy offered his own. Steve handed over the trash with a chirped, “Thanks. Is your sister okay?”

“My step-sister’s fine.”

Steve sent him a look that did nothing to hide his judgment. “How long have you lived together?”

Billy’s mouth lifted on one side like Steve were handing him rotten lemon wedges instead of old memos. “What’s it matter?”

Steve shook his head, trying for carelessness. “I think she’s nice. Nice enough to drop the ‘step’…”

He spread a purple note between his fingers, frowning open-mouthed at it before his features relaxed under paling skin. Billy was busy glaring at passersby. “You’ve barely interacted with her.”

“The middle school is right across the parking lot. I hear her skateboarding. Um…are you free tomorrow?”

Billy shrugged. “Last day before Thanksgiving break. So not really.”

“Oh.”

Billy finally looked over in time to see Steve swallow dryly. “Hey. Are you sick or something?”

“No,” he said with too much air in his voice. He vaguely moved the note in his hand. “I just remembered something.”

Billy didn’t ask. He had to be on his most brotherly, stepson behavior over Thanksgiving if he wanted to use winter break to the fullest potential. Which meant keeping his own nose out of Steve’s business. “Okay, well…you’re off tomorrow so take it easy.”

He heard a quiet, “Yeah,” as he left for the gymnasium.

* * *

Billy went home with his sister and did a long session of laundry. He separated his denim from the pile but he wore his bright colors so scarcely that the dryer tumbled laboriously with his denim and neutral shirts. He stripped his bed for good measure, and by the time he yanked the fitted sheet back into place, he heard Max greeting their parents home from work.

Neil suggested that the kids go with Susan to the grocery store while he got a head start on dinner. Billy agreed without complaint or hesitation—making sure to scrape the lint tray clean on his way past the laundry room.

The grocery store errand mostly involved Max pushing the cart, Susan making conversation, and Billy strolling behind them with his hands in his pockets. A large part of him hoped to see Steve or Mrs. Harrington in the aisles, but the Harringtons had already done their shopping for their early holiday. The store was otherwise filled with scurrying people trying to get the last can of cranberries.

The Hargrove parents were off the next day, the family sitting together for breakfast before Max and Billy went for their last day of school for the week—

The phone rang, and Neil put a hand on Susan’s shoulder to inform her that he’d get it. “Hargrove residence…. Yes, he’s here. May I ask what this is about?”

Billy didn’t raise his head, but he tried to reach for the sugar jar like nothing could be wrong.

“Hospital?”

His head jerked up, and a moment later, his father waved him over with the phone. Billy scooted his chair back with his foot and grasped the receiver. “Hello?”

“Billy? God, I’m sorry—”

He’d never heard Steve’s voice over the phone. It sounded foreign yet familiar all at once. “Sorry for what? What’s up?”

“Can you drive me to the doctor’s? It’s—It’s a regular appointment thing. If you need to go to school, it’s fine. Or just skip your first two classes—”

Billy made sure to say clearly, “We’re watching movies in all my classes, since it’s a short week. I can show up late. I gotta drop off Max, first.”

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah,” Steve replied. “Um…I guess whenever you’re ready.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

Max had already stood from the table, abandoning the last few bites of her toast and soggy cereal. Billy held the front door for her as his father declared behind them, “If I drive by the school around lunch time, I don’t want to not see your car there.”

“Yes, sir.”

He tried to shut the door without slamming it and jogged around his car. The car doors shut at nearly the same time, and Max asked, “Is he okay?”

Billy twisted his key in the ignition. “Mind your business.”

“Well, was the hospital thing real?”

“ _Yes_ , it’s real,” he relented, “but I don’t know what it’s about. Keep your mouth shut about it.”

“I don’t gossip,” she retaliated, and then settled in for the hell ride to school.

* * *

Billy didn’t bother getting out of the Camaro. He revved the engine once, and sure enough, Steve came out in his usual jeans, sneakers, and jacket. The only hint that something might be wrong was how he leaned a little too far forward, and looked at the ground as he walked.

On the drive to the hospital, though, Billy stole peeks at him. Steve breathed more out of his mouth than usual, but raised to complaints regarding the loudness of Billy’s car. It was the least they’d spoken to one another since Billy moved here.

After reversing into a parking spot in the hospital lot, Billy paused in handling his seatbelt when Steve said, “You can stay here, if you want.”

He shook his head and let the seatbelt slap back into place. “I’m coming in.”

Steve licked his lips, still breathing through his mouth as he nodded. “Okay.”

Billy took a seat in the reception room; a dark space that was probably trying for comfort, but instead succeeded as a solemn cave of boredom.

Or dread, in Steve’s case, as he spoke briefly with the receptionist. After he sat next to Billy with the clipboard, Billy almost offered to fill it out for him, but Steve managed on his own.

Right before a holiday, and during school hours, the room only housed the pair of them, an elderly man, and a mother playing with her toddler at the kids’ table.

The door opened. “Steve Harrington?” called a nurse with cat ears so small that Billy almost missed them. He only noticed because her natural, African hair stood around the ears, which glowed pink from the light behind her shining through them.

Steve perked up, and she smiled like she knew him. “Come on back, honey.”

Billy spoke low in his chest, a pitch usually reserved for seduction, but he wanted Steve’s attention without shocking his eardrums. “You want me to come with?”

Steve glanced back without really seeing him. He rubbed his palms against his jeans. “No, it’s okay. Thanks.”

Billy watched Steve follow the nurse through the door, small bits of conversation passing through before the door shut. He waited a few minutes and went outside for a cigarette. He reckoned they’d gotten Steve in quickly, but doctors always made patients wait like they were a last priority. Regardless, Billy used the early time to get his smoke out of the way, and stayed outside for the smell to dissipate before returning inside.

When Steve reemerged through the door, Billy’s eyes widened under furrowed brows. Steve’s complexion was definitely…greener…than he remembered, but he spoke more animatedly with the nurse this time. Billy’s eyes absorbed how he held his jacket in in his hands, how his sleeves were rolled up…

A pair of small band aids sat on each shoulder. In pastel colors, and one even sparkled with glittering, rainbow stripes. Billy scrubbed a hand over his mouth to avoid outright laughing or smirking. _Kitten needed his shots._

Billy stood to meet him halfway. He took Steve’s jacket and shook it out for him. “Thanks.”

“You good?”

Steve rubbed a hand over his chest, but smiled more easily. “After some fresh air, yeah.”

Billy put all of the windows down, but not without the small jibe, “Why didn’t you say your were due for a tetanus shot?”

“I don’t like injections,” Steve said quietly. He rolled a shoulder and lifted the elbow, working it a little to alleviate soreness later.

“Yeah, I pieced that together. How many did you get?”

He pulled out of the parking spot as Steve informed, “Three. One in each arm and two separately.”

“What do you do afterwards? Some McDonalds soft serve?”

“You’re hilarious. And some fries.”

Billy let himself grin and pulled onto the corresponding road for the drive-thru. Afterward, since they were close to a lake, Steve gave him directions to the boat ramp parking lot, which sat deserted in the November cold. A dock bobbed off to the side, acting as a makeshift lighthouse and spider web community, but Billy and Steve settled down with their food. They scraped fries over the vanilla ice cream cone, and Billy watched Steve’s color fill back into his face.

When Steve lay back on the dock, satiated with his limbs star-fished out, Billy gave his stomach a poke. All of Steve lurched around the spot, making Billy’s laugh echo across the water.

Neither of them wanted the soggy sugar cone, so Billy threw it into the bag and rolled it closed as he announced, “I need to head back to school.”

Steve began to roll onto his side like it took a great effort. “Okay…okay. Hey, um…I’m sorry if I got you in trouble. When I called.”

Billy dumped the bag in a trashcan they passed, and then met Steve’s apologetic gaze. “Your dad sounds real stiff on the phone.”

Billy’s tongue clicked a little when he licked his lips. “He’s about as flexible as a telephone pole.”

“You and Max can come over for Thanksgiving, if you want. Tomorrow, I mean.”

Billy huffed a little as he unlocked his car. “Wednesday Thanksgiving. Love to, but can’t. I _might_ be able to swing by Thursday night.”

“It’s supposed to snow Thursday or Friday night. Have you ever driven in the snow?”

Conversation paused for them to fold themselves into the car. “Not yet.”

“You should have a bag of clothes and water in here.”

“Steve.” He turned his key in the ignition.

“It’s not an insult to your car… It’s you as a driver.”

“I can leave you here, if you want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for enabling my obsession with these soft boissss <3
> 
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	5. Mood Behaviors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place in the same day as the last chapter! <3

Billy was, however, allowed to visit Steve that Tuesday after school. At Susan’s behest.

“Go check on your friend. It’s a holiday, after all. Max has been begging to meet with her video game buddies. You two go get ready, and be sure to pick her up before nine. I don’t want you caught on icy roads.”

Billy didn’t need to be told twice. And neither did Max. They both fell into the Camaro with synchronized movements that earned a shared look of confounded euphoria at their luck.

When he pulled up to the Wheelers’ house, Billy couldn’t help but lean into Max’s space to peer at the house through her window. “Wheeler…Nancy Wheeler?”

Max fixed wary eyes on him. “I guess? Her brother’s in my grade.”

Billy held his lips closed while his tongue scraped down his front teeth. “Don’t take any shit from either of them.”

Max had the sense not to ask, even though she clearly wanted to. Then she scoffed, “Her brother’s friends are all nerds anyway. It took a millennium for him to realize I was beating him at chess.”

Billy blinked hard. “Since when do you play chess?”

“Since, like, a week ago. A fuse blew at school, and my whole hallway didn’t have power. The teacher had board games, and the queen is the most powerful piece in chess. Sounded cool. The morons forgot about that part and kept arguing about bishops and knights.”

Billy looked solidly divided between impressed and bored out of his mind. He tipped his chin in a gesture to get out. “Don’t freeze. Be ready by eight-thirty.”

“Eight-thirty,” she confirmed, and he could see her breath in the quickly fading afternoon as she jogged across the yard. He waited for the door to open before speeding away.

Billy licked his lips and turned his music up. He smirked at his rearview mirror, giddy. Long weekend and two doses of Steve in one day? Not bad at all.

He made sure to turn the music down as he turned into the pish-posh neighborhood, and slowed down at the sight of two vans outside the Harringtons’ house. Since they took up the curb space, Billy pulled in right behind Steve’s BMW in the driveway. He smelled ice in the air as he stepped out of the car, and could hear distant conversation behind the house in the backyard. On the vans he read _: Indianapolis Pool & Spa_.

He got to the front stoop and raised his fist to knock—

A _lot_ of noise flew past the other side of the red doors. Something like a combination of a crash, scurrying, and something heavy hitting a surface, before it faded in pulses. Like someone running up stairs.

Mrs. Harrington opened the door as if she hadn’t been far away to hear his knock. Having the barrier between him and the rest of the house opened allowed Billy to hear how the noise had only moved upstairs, and not at all diminished. His eyes swept right up to the commotion, his mouth agape but failing to deliver the intended, _Evening, Mrs. H._

She sighed with a nod like she understood and stepped aside for him to come in. While she closed the door, she elevated her voice to say, “Good evening, Billy.”

A stampede on the second floor widened blue eyes at none other than Diva skidding to a halt at the top of the stairs, with Steve close behind her. Billy’s brows reached toward his hairline as if to meet the comical question marks drifting above his head…

Until Steve’s eyes blew wider than he’d ever seen them, obsidian consuming amber and white before the goon dashed out of sight. Diva’s head moved between Billy and the direction Steve had gone, unsure which to choose.

Mrs. Harrington, meanwhile, snickered. “Good luck.”

Billy shrugged out of his coat while she began to head towards the backyard. “Someone feeling better after his shots?”

“Thank you so much for taking him,” she answered with a wave of relief. “We’ve been waiting on the pool people all day. They’ve been postponing us for days, and we got started on it ourselves this morning since, you know, the weather moving in….” She put her hands on her hips—much like a habit her son shared—and glanced upstairs before she refocused on Billy. One of the hands waved him off. “You’ll be fine. Just don’t break my walls.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he crooned breathily, taking the stairs two at a time to meet Diva on the landing. He whispered, “Help me find him, baby girl.”

He meant to pet her, but she was so riled up that she reared onto her hind legs like a horse and charged in the direction of Steve’s room. Billy wondered if it would be worth it to lighten his steps and decided against it. Everything was out of his favor: his breathing, his heartbeat, the rustle of his clothes—Steve could hear it all. But that meant Steve would find him…

Billy pushed the door of Steve’s bedroom open, only to have a hard body crash into him from behind. From the guestroom across the hall, Steve tackled Billy all the way onto his own bed, where they grappled with the momentum and rolled right off the other side. Limbs smacking into the blinds saved the window from breaking, but then Steve was up and bounding out of his room—

Billy grabbed an ankle, and thanks to his rug, was able to drag Steve under his body. Until Steve rolled them over and straddled him. Billy gazed up at him, wide-eyed and invigorated. “You’re stronger than you look!”

For a split second, Steve was very still. A half-smile rested on his face. Then he sprang up again to flee the room. Billy would not admit it, but he’d played with Diva enough times to know to be ready. He was up and after him fast enough to wrap his arms around Steve’s waist. They hit the corridor wall, and Steve jumped slightly at a picture frame falling down.

“Oh—shit!” But it melted into laughing complaints as Billy hauled him back into the bedroom. He practically threw Steve onto the bed, causing a yelp that had Billy laughing before he absorbed Steve’s tail whipping through the air. On his feet and ready to spring, the tail sleuthed behind him, keeping him balanced. Billy liked finally seeing it at work.

Billy eased his feet a little wider apart, running his tongue around his mouth. “Well, come on, Harrington. Let’s see it.”

Steve stood in a semi-crouch on the bed, eyes moving and deliberating on what to do next… But then his ears twitched, twisting a little, and then a lot. He blinked, his brow moving with confusion, and then suddenly Billy was practically catching Steve as he launched off the bed. “What? _What?_ What’s going on?”

“Come on!”

A disjointed yowl came from Diva as Steve startled her as he through the hallway. Thundering down the stairs, Steve yanked on the front door—

And was thoroughly halted by the lock and deadbolt. “Ah! Son of a…” he fumbled with one while Billy caught up and gave the other a flick of his wrist.

Then the doors opened wide to the front yard being covered in a thin layer of snow. Mrs. Harrington called from the other side of the house, “Steve! Don’t let Diva outside!”

On cue, the feline arrived at their feet. Steve scooped her up and stepped onto the welcome mat. Billy closed one of the doors for a semblance of heating unit courtesy, and joined him outside to hear what Steve did…the quiet little bells of snow landing on snow. The soft but distinct _tink!tink!tink!_ tickled something in Billy’s ears.

“First snow,” Steve breathed, a smile in his voice as he shifted his weight, bumping gently into Billy.

The latter looked down at the concrete and asphalt. “It’s only sticking to the grass.”

“Yeah, the ground’s not cold enough. Come Thursday or Friday, it will be, though. Have you ever seen snow?”

Billy had to think about it. “I think once…when I was real little. I don’t remember why we were in Colorado, but I remember being uncomfortable. Too sweaty, but too cold.”

He peeked at Diva in Steve’s arms. Her nose lifted with each sniff, her eyes occasionally opening to dart around the snowflakes, before falling to half-mast again while she inhaled the winter air.

His eyes continued right down to Steve’s bare feet. “Come on. Only one of us has fur on her feet.”

Steve turned to go inside as he said, “I like the smell of snow.”

Billy smiled to himself as he followed behind. He hummed a sound of agreement. “Me too. I prefer summer mornings, but me too.”

“I like summer nights.” Steve set his cat on the floor.

“Oh yeah? What do you get up to in the summer?”

Steve did not answer, however, as his attention went to the other side of the house. Billy looked down the hallway running from the foyer to the kitchen-living room area. A man had entered the house and spoke to Mrs. Harrington.

Suddenly, Billy had a lot of Steve focused on him. “Do you want to meet my dad? You don’t have to.”

Billy tried to read what Steve wasn’t telling him. Running out of time, Billy asked outright, “What, is he an asshole or something?”

Steve shrugged with a glance elsewhere, but he looked annoyed instead of afraid. “He can be a lot. He’s never really one hundred percent respected my friends, and I don’t want you to be upset by that.”

Billy wanted to ask him to elaborate on that, but the man called out to his son. “Steve! Can I get your help outside?”

Something prompted Billy to put his hand on the middle of Steve’s back, for his fingers to curve with his ribs in the tiniest pull to bring Steve close; a mixture of protectiveness and urgency to prove something.

_He can be a lot, huh?_

“So can I.”

He could see that Steve didn’t really follow that, but he let it go to gesture to a closet door. “He’s gonna make us move the outside furniture into storage. There’s a pair of shoes that should fit you in there.”

Steve went to meet his father while Billy found the duck shoes he’d referred to. Billy couldn’t imagine Steve wearing them for anything relating to ducks, but the fleece inside was warmer than his canvas shoes, and the tread would be better on the snowy concrete.

After lacing them on, he donned his jacket and found Steve yanking on his own pair of snow boots by the sliding back door. Mr. Harrington turned at the sound of Billy’s footfalls. “You must be the friend that gave Steve a lift this morning.”

“Billy Hargrove, sir.” He reached out and shook hands. “It was no trouble.”

 _Was also more than a lift,_ he fumed inwardly. _Kitty was a different person in that car._

“Do you mind giving us a hand? It shouldn’t take long to move the chairs and table into the shed.”

He didn’t wait for Billy’s answer, but the man seemed polite enough. Billy didn’t really mind, since he got to see snowflakes linger in Steve’s dark hair as he took a minute to draw a cupcake in the snow on the surface of the table. Billy added a discrete, phallic candle on top with an arguably wet flame before Steve laughed and tipped the table on its side. They carried it together into the doublewide shed on the side of the yard, and stacked the chairs to carry together as well.

Mr. Harrington organized the shed as they dropped things off. “Thanks, gentlemen,” he finished as one of the workmen got his attention. Billy observed him signing a clipboard, as well as the other employees filing out of the gate. A couple of them were eyeing Steve with discrete, but repetitive, glances. Billy put his arm around Steve, if nothing else than to put a barrier around him.

Steve peeked up at him on their way to the house. Billy tried to erase whatever his face was doing so he could tease, “Has Mrs. H. made that casserole yet?”

“Oh, are yams suddenly appetizing?” he retorted with a hop over the threshold. Billy followed Steve’s actions in putting their shoes in one of the kitchen sinks—the white farmhouse sink closer to the door.

Mrs. Harrington overheard and asked, “Billy, are you eating with us?”

“Only if it’s convenient for you. I don’t pick up my sister until 8:30.”

The woman snorted as she came around to open the fridge. “Nobody goes hungry in this house. Still no food allergies, right?”

“That's right.”

Steve intercepted, “He doesn’t like sweet potatoes.”

“I can be persuaded.”

“Kiss ass.”

Steve’s mom suavely intervened, “I can use your help with the sweet potato gnocchi.”

Steve stopped in his tracks to gape at her. “No! That stuff’s a nightmare.”

Billy frowned between them. “What are we talking about?”

“It’s your favorite,” Mrs. Harrington chimed, wiggling a potato in the air. “Be down in an hour.”

Diva had jumped onto the counter just in time for Steve to take her in passing. He hugged her to his chest and buried his disgruntlement in her fur on his way to the stairs. Billy tossed his coat back onto the rack as he asked, “What are we making?”

Steve’s tone told him exactly how he felt about it. “It’s an Italian dumpling.”

“Like, the filled kind or the doughy kind?”

“It’s dough. A million pieces of sticky, sticky dough.”

He tossed the cat onto his bed and went to his closet. Billy sat and massaged her face when she put her forepaws on his thigh.

Then Steve took off his sweatshirt to dump in the laundry basket, but not without the t-shirt underneath riding up. Billy got a full view of a silky haired trail leading up from his tail before the shirt fell back over it. He swallowed thickly.

Without turning around, Steve asked, “Do you want a shirt?”

“No, I wore my jacket outside.”

It was the logical answer, but not the smart one. Billy realized it as soon as the words left his mouth, but he was stuck in his own, Billy-smelling raiment while Steve pulled on a dark blue, cable-knit sweater. The yarn was looser on the shoulders, well loved and often worn. The sleeves were a little baggy on his arms, but he rolled them up into quarter sleeves and threw himself onto the bed. Diva immediately stood on his torso before tucking her legs underneath her body.

Billy rolled over to lie on his side and gave Steve’s cheek a poke. “Are they really your favorite?”

“I have a lot of favorites.”

Billy chuckled. “Pouting over dumplings. Wow.”

“Hush.”

“How are your arms feeling?”

“Sore. But fine—” Billy poked his arm, and Diva quickly jumped off of Steve. “OW. You piece of shit!”

But Billy laughed and laughed as he caught Steve’s hands and they tumbled once again off the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever made gnocchi? Or just got flour wet and regretted it because gluten is so. f*cking. STICKY.
> 
> Things Steve fawns over (and Billy has no idea he’s doing right):  
> Cooking  
> Mom respect  
> Loves Diva  
> Dependable  
> Doesn’t take shit or butter him up because of his cat qualities  
> Billy’s heartbeat is louder when he’s having ~feelings~
> 
> [Twitter~](https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums)  
> [Tumblr~](http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/)


	6. When Cats Bring Gifts

Billy used tweezers the next morning to scrape the leftover flour out from underneath his nails. The only reason he’d waited so long is so he could wake up with some proof that the past evening had happened.

After the potatoes had roasted in the oven, they’d been heralded downstairs to start peeling and what Billy learned as “ricing” the orange flesh. He thought it was just a strange masher, but apparently there was more finesse to all this.

“Billy’s the guest, he gets the gadget,” Mrs. Harrington proclaimed.

“So much for being on my side,” Steve had groaned.

Far from being off the hook, though, Billy riced two potatoes, and thereby made two portions. Steve worked one side, and he got the other. Sweet potatoes, flour, and eggs later, Billy understood why Steve despised this food.

“You need more flour,” Steve said, raining white over Billy’s mess.

“That’ll make it dry out.”

“You boil it first to cook it, so it’s fine.”

“Jesus. Baked, boiled, and then what? How many times do you cook this stuff?”

Mrs. Harrington chimed from the sink, where she waited for a pot to fill with water, “It’ll be worth it.”

Steve finished his dough first, and let the mound sit aside while he picked off all the heterogeneous pieces of dough off of Billy’s hands. He rocked onto the balls of his feet to use his bodyweight in the kneading. “You know, now’s the time for your muscles to shine.”

“You don’t need to emasculate me over dinner.”

Steve giggled as his tail slashed back and forth behind him. Billy bumped their hips together to move him out of the way. “I got this now.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Steve didn’t step out of his space immediately. He reached over for the bench scraper and then returned to his dough. He cut it in half and then made two skinny logs so he could cut them into pieces at the same time. Billy arranged his dough and did the same, amassing between them hundreds of little dough pillows. “Now we boil these?”

Steve sighed haughtily, and reached for a weirdly small paddle…thing. It had long rows of grooves on it. Steve rolled a piece of dough over it, changing the shape from a square pillow into something like a puka shell.

Steve looked Billy dead in the face as he wagged the gnocchi paddle. “We only have one of these.”

Comprehension dawned on his face. “You’re joking.”

Mrs. Harrington dumped salt into the pot on the stove. “Would you like a sea shanty to start your rhythm?”

She laughed with her tongue between her teeth at both boys staring at her. “The faster you start, the sooner you’re done.”

Billy’s mouth pressed into an annoyed line as she went about chopping herbs and grinding stuff into a sauce with a mortar and pestle. In this kind of house, Billy guessed that was for Steve’s benefit, because they definitely had the money for a food processor.

The young men did fall into a rhythm, though, one by one squishing and rolling the dumplings on the paddle, back and forth. Mrs. Harrington took the tray of gnocchi as they filled it over to the stove. The house soon filled with the roasted sweet fragrances of butter, garlic, and sweet potato as they moved from the pot to a skillet. The entire process was more decadent than Billy had ever experienced, and he felt certain that the finished product was equivalent to hundred dollar meal. The green sauce cut through the butter and sweet potato in a way that had him going back for seconds.

When all was said and done, 8:15 arrived in a blink. Steve walked him to the door, his demeanor much different than when Billy had first arrived. Satiated and worn out from roughhousing and cooking, Steve walked all the way to Billy’s car with him to check the driveway.

“It’s not frozen yet, but black ice is no joke.”

“I think I can handle it…”

Steve was hugging him before Billy fully comprehended why Steve had moved so close, and why he was putting his arms around him…

His lashes moved heavily over his eyes when he felt movement on his hair. He felt Steve flush against him as he inhaled against Billy’s hair.

“You smell like winter.”

Billy turned the sink off and replaced the tweezers in the medicine cabinet. After a shower, he made sure his shirt from last night stayed tucked away under his covers. He didn’t want to lose the pepper-floral warmth of Steve just yet.

Wednesday proved a slow drag.

Thursday started at 7am. Billy supposed it to be sleeping in compared to everyone who had to get up to ready a full bird for its day in the oven, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant. Max snapped the green beans. Billy skinned potatoes. The television and radio filled any silences that would have otherwise been uncomfortable.

The Hargrove house said Grace. But briefly and to the point. Checked off the list.

What was _not_ checked off the list, was dessert. Four people had completely forgotten any sort of pie or crumble or cobbler.

“I can make a cobbler fast,” Susan declared, “but we need fruit in the house. There’s bound to be a grocery store open with frozen berries.”

Neil informed from the kitchen window, “It’s starting to snow. Billy, take your sister and get it done before it sticks. Stretch your legs.”

Max’s head fell back with silent annoyance as she marched to her room to don more layers. Billy pulled on another shirt before lacing his boots. He and Max worked their arms into their coats as Susan chirped from the kitchen, “Drive safe!”

“You remember what I told you about driving in the cold,” Neil said. “You don’t brake on the ice.”

“Yes, sir.”

Max went through the door first, and Billy just focused on not slamming it behind him. He kept his eyes on the porch and stairs, gauging how slippery those would be…

A garnet-brown BMW sat on the street, the hot vehicle smoking gently in the cold as small, fluffy flakes drifted over the lawn. Steve’s head perked up out of the car, having just been emerging out of his door. He struggled a little to turn around and stand up straight, but he waved at them before ducking back into the vehicle for something.

Billy saw Max look at him in his periphery and met her worried look. Billy loped over the stairs to use the grass instead of the hazardous walkway. He caught Steve before he could get closer to the house.

“Hey,” he breathed, reemerging from his car with a square, tin dish in his hands. Billy’s eyes locked on the thick headband around Steve’s head as if he had human ears to cover. Never mind to two dark points right on top of his head. “Hi, Max.”

Billy realized she had followed right behind him. “Hey. What’s that?”

They all looked at the medium-sized tin in his hands. “My mom made a sweet potato casserole for you guys. It’s a disposable container, so you don’t have to return anything.”

Steve seemed a little too pleased about it. “Now why would she do that?” Billy cornered.

Steve grinned innocently at him. “Spite. Are you two going somewhere?”

Max responded, “We made all the food but forgot dessert. Mom wants to make a cobbler but we need fruit.”

“Oh! Do you want a ride? I know the best place that’s open.”

Billy took the dish and refused, “No thanks. We’re on a time limit.”

“Yeah?” Steve drawled behind him. He put his arms on the roof of his car as he watched Billy cowboy march over the crunchy grass to his own car. “No offense, Camaro, but I know I’ve got more experience driving in this than you do.”

He waved his car key in the air at the snow. “And not to be that guy, but I’ve got climate control in my car. You wanna be spoiled?”

Max peered between the two of them, Steve moving his tongue cockily behind his lips and Billy obviously deliberating on how to tell him off. Steve finished before he could, “Come on, you gave me a ride last time. It’s my turn.”

Steve got in his car without waiting for an answer. While the BMW rumbled softly to life, Max watched Billy lose an internal fight with himself. He prowled back to the BMW with the order, “Back seat.”

Max kept her sass to herself as they filed into the vehicle. Then she chimed, “This is nice,” over the warm interior, still radiating from his drive over here.

Steve turned a knob to direct heat to his windshield as he said, “Roasty toasty.”

“Where are we going?” Billy curtailed.

“I told you,” Steve remarked as he did a K-turn in the road. “Best grocery store in town that’ll be open.”

But never in Billy’s dreams would he have expected to see an Asian Market in Hawkins, Indiana. Nor would he have guessed it to be bigger than any of the other grocery stores.

He heard Max breathe, “Woah,” beside him as they trailed after Steve inside.

“Hi, Mrs. Park!” he called to a woman behind one of the registers.

“Steve! What are you doing out on a snow day?”

“Did you get any more shrimp chips?”

“Not your flavor—you keep cleaning us out—but we’ve got other brands in stock.”

Steve pivoted to see Billy and Max taking it all in. “What kind of fruit did you want?”

Mrs. Park overheard and heralded, “Has your mother used up all the yuja? Come with me, we’ve got new things.”

Billy couldn’t help but smirk. He knew he missed California, but something else moved in his chest, like a bruised knot was finally relaxing.

Steve accepted a fresh jar of yuja marmalade for yujacha—a Korean, citrus, pulpy tea. Max found the freezer section that had bags of cherries and mixed fruit. Billy got distracted by the tanks of fresh fish swimming around, and then it occurred to him how Steve was ironically not hanging around the fish monger’s. Billy found him in the chip aisle, eating an open bag of shrimp chips.

“I think you’re supposed to pay for those.”

“Mm!” Steve hummed around a mouthful like he had an epiphany. He gave Billy the open bag, and he used the brief seconds to help himself before Steve filled both of their arms with bags. “Ready? Let’s go.”

“You might have a problem.”

“It’s protein,” he retorted on their way to the register.

“Is it, though? Max!”

“I’m right here,” she manifested beside him.

Mrs. Park kindly scanned the open bag first so Steve could keep munching. Billy did not realize, however, that Steve had paid for everything until the backseat filled with grocery bags and Max. He didn’t bring it up until Steve parked in front of their house and he sent Max inside with the casserole and fruit.

“What are you looking for?” Steve peered at him as he dug through the grocery bags.

“The receipt. I have the cash to pay for my half.”

“You don’t need to do that. You only got two bags of fruit.”

“Just let me do this, Harrington,” he clipped, landing back in his seat with the strip of paper. He withdrew a few bills from his wallet and stuck them in the cup holder between them. “Thanks for the ride. We’ll see about the casserole later.”

Steve scoffed in the direction of the street instead of Billy, “Fine.”

Snow had almost entirely covered the yard as Billy carefully crunched over the walkway. The street was coated enough so he saw Steve’s tire tracks.

Once inside, Susan met him with, “Your friend was so nice to bring over the casserole! Is he the one who needed the hospital on Monday?”

“His mom was really grateful,” he replied flatly.

“I’ll make two cobblers so you can take one over tomorrow for her. Be sure to thank them for us.”

Billy left his boots by the door so he could pad across the floor to his room—

“Snow hats are funny, aren’t they?”

He looked back at his father on the couch. “Sir?”

The television distracted the man’s vision, but he gestured to his own head as reference. “The hat that boy was wearing. It reminds me of the slopes in Colorado. How the kids and teens in snowboarding lessons all had flamboyant hats like that.”

Billy could only answer a soft, “Right,” and go into his room.

* * *

It stopped snowing late in the afternoon, but picked up again the following morning. The world sat quiet and tranquil…and…a little bit eerie as Billy smoked in the evening before going to bed.

The following day revealed how many people in Hawkins didn’t know how to drive in the snow. Billy must’ve passed three wrecks just going from his neighborhood to Steve’s, never mind how the town center must be doing. When he turned into the neighborhood, his car slid sideways until it found traction again. Amazing how a second and a half of no control almost made him panic park and walk the rest of the way.

Many of the residents had salted their driveways during Thanksgiving, and generously applied salt to the street as well. Billy parked behind Steve for the off chance that someone skidding could land on the curb instead of his car.

Mrs. Harrington opened the door, and at this point, she simply opened it and turned back to the living room in one motion. “Morning, Billy. Safe drive?”

“I can’t say the same for others,” he dodged. “My step-mom wants me to give this to you.”

She turned back to notice the glass pie dish in his hands. Instead of removing the foil on top, she held it up and sniffed. “Cherries and blackberries? Oh, this won’t last the day. Thank you! Steve’s in his room. I’ll put this in the oven so it’s fresh again. He’ll know when it’s ready, if you’re staying for lunch?”

“I don’t ever turn down food from this place,” he crooned, already on his way upstairs.

Steve’s door was open enough to allow Diva to come and go. Billy rapped a knuckle on it before slowly pushing it open. Steve was still in bed, lying on his stomach and facing the opposite wall. The garland on his headboard twinkled with its intertwined lights, so he had been up this morning at some point. Billy eased the door mostly shut, and jumped so he landed on his back, causing the mattress to bounce significantly.

Steve didn’t move, which meant he had to be awake.

Billy vigorously rubbed between his shoulder blades with a firm pat. “I know you’re not sleeping through the break.”

“I can try.”

Billy plucked Steve’s t-shirt up so it snapped back down. “Let’s do something.”

“Why?” he grumbled. Billy knew what he looked like when he moped, but the only reason that Billy could see was the general disturbance on a Friday morning.

“Because it’s a winter wonderland outside, and there will be a hot lunch and dessert waiting for us. I thought you liked the snow?”

Billy reckoned the only reason he got out of bed was to make Billy stop tormenting him. Billy helped himself to Steve’s duck shoes instead of his own boots, and waited by the door as Steve pulled on his headband with a pair of sunglasses in his hand. He didn’t leave without a thorough petting to Diva’s head, though. She sat in the hallway between the door and the living room, blinking heavily against Steve’s hands.

Last but not least, when he stood up, Steve pulled on a pair of gloves. Billy opened one of the doors and stepped out into the snowfall. Thick clusters of flakes drifted over the neighborhood, gentle but the morning’s lazy precipitation had already doubled.

“You think we’ll have school next week?” Billy glanced back at Steve smelling the air with squinted eyes before he donned his sunglasses. He zipped his coat high over his scarf, tucked his chin unto its warm, and began walking with his hands in his pockets.

“It’ll be the opposite of this week. Monday and Tuesday off before they finally get a snow plough from the city.”

Billy soon began to eye Steve’s accoutrements with longing as they meandered down the empty street. Steve informed him that the neighborhood had a small playground around the corner, which they could make a lap around and double back. It was one of the few things Steve said, let alone volunteered for conversation. Billy took the time to light a cigarette and position himself down wind. The heat in his lungs got him to the little park, where Steve plopped himself into a swing.

Billy flicked the filter into a bin and leaned against the swing’s metal frame. He came right out with it: “Did Wheeler call?”

Steve slowly peered up at him. “No?”

“Then why are you like this?”

He made a quiet scoffing sound as he looked back down at his lap and the snow around his feet. “Don’t trip over all that finesse you’re carrying.”

Billy’s tongue moved over his front teeth as he peered around the park. He came to sit in the swing beside him. “Did your dad say something?”

“No.”

“Is Diva sick?”

“She’s fine.”

“Do I literally need to go through the rolodex of your life before you tell me what’s bothering you?”

Steve removed a hand from his pocket. He held something out to him: a folded stack of one dollar bills.

Billy took it but said, “What is this for?”

Steve didn’t look at him as he explained, “It’s for the fruit. I don’t want it.”

“It’s what they cost—”

“I feel shitty having it. Just take it back.”

Billy tried to process that. “I’m not bothered by paying for my groceries. Why are you upset—?”

“I don’t _know why_ ,” he clipped, avoiding looking in Billy’s direction. “I wanted to do something nice… Getting paid just…ruins the whole thing.”

Confusion more than anything eclipsed Billy’s emotions. The twinkling sound of snow falling moved around them while he absorbed and contemplated this. There was nothing for it but to go through his memory and try and see exactly where their brains had crossed in a bad way:

Steve arrived to deliver the casserole.

Then he offered to take them to the store. Insisted on it.

They got to the store where the manager clearly knew Steve and his mom. Mrs. Park insisted on showing and giving Steve something for his mom.

Steve then loaded up on shrimp chips. He shared his open bag with Billy and Max.

They got back to Cherry Lane and Max went inside. Billy got the receipt to pay…

Steve tried to refuse.

But…he paid for the yuja stuff. The lady insisted on it for his mom, but Steve paid for it. That’s how a business _works_.

_What is it that I’m not getting here?_

Then, all at once, a memory slammed into him from California. He’d been so young, the memory was like from another lifetime. But he and his mother used to feed a stray cat, and random bits of colorful trash showed up in their yard. Neil thought local kids were littering or something, but then the neighbor’s pet budgie showed up on their stoop. Billy never got an explanation. The bird was cleaned up, and the cat disappeared.

_It’s a cat thing. He’s…embarrassed?_

He peeked at Steve, whose ears flicked before they turned backward and down as he shook his head to disperse the valley of snow between them. He held the end of his tail in his lap.

Billy held the money out. “Hold onto it for me.” He could tell by the turn of Steve’s head that he was going to say no, so he added, “My dad goes through my stuff. I can’t hang onto this.”

Steve finally looked at him properly. And in a way…Billy finally saw him for the first time today, too. He looked tired, like he’d spent all of Thanksgiving mulling over this money.

It returned to Steve’s pocket as he voiced, “He does?”

Billy wiggled a little on his seat, causing the swing to sway. “Not as much anymore, but if my step-mom gives me money for anything, he keeps an eye on that.”

A long sigh eased out of Steve. “That’s a shit situation.”

Billy tried to soothe, “Just hang onto it for me, until I need to restock my cigarettes.”

Steve blew through his lips so they flapped. “I can’t believe you smoke Reds.”

“What’s wrong with Reds?” he bristled.

He got a slanted glare of judgment before Steve reconsidered, “My dad smokes sometimes. But he travels and goes to cigar clubs and shit.”

“Oh. I’m not fancy enough for you?”

“It’s not about fancy. It’s about quality. Dad brought home these cigars from Singapore once. I stole half of them; wasn’t even subtle about it. They smelled so good. He locks his cigar case now but not the liquor cabinet.”

Cloudy laughter billowed between them. “I didn’t take you for an indulgent smoker.”

“Why?” Steve challenged, but Billy didn’t bite.

“Sensitive smell, maybe a sensitive taste too.”

Steve pulled on his heels, giving him the momentum to swing a little. “Not all smells are bad, just like not all sounds are bad. I’m freezing my ass off. Let’s go.”

Billy couldn’t agree more. Heaving himself out of the swing, he felt lighter, strolled behind him back toward the house…

Steve’s ear twisted at the soft rustle, but he lurched at the impact of a snowball on his shoulder blade. Billy had the experience of facing a muted glare behind his sunglasses, but flattened ears on the other side spoke for themselves. “You… _cheap_. That was cheap!”

Billy defiantly scooped more snow. “I’m all luxury, honey.”

“You!” Steve piped, but dived behind the trash bin. Billy hit his leg, but Steve wore gloves. He made two snowballs in record time, nailing Billing on the ass and narrowly missing his hair as he held up the swing seat as a shield.

“No, no—Hey! Hey! Hey! This isn’t fair. My fingers will be black by the time we're back inside.” Steve’s head peered around the bin. “Truce?”

Steve considered it for exactly one and a half seconds. “Hell no.”

He took off out of the park with Billy hot on his heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *long sigh* this had to end somewhere, I'm so sorry lol but some big ~romantic~ progress will be made in the next one <3
> 
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